


It Had To Be This Way

by MaggieMaybe160



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Art, Grief/Mourning, Heavy Angst, Love, M/M, Murder, Season/Series 14 Spoilers, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-24
Updated: 2019-01-24
Packaged: 2019-10-15 17:20:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 982
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17532980
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MaggieMaybe160/pseuds/MaggieMaybe160
Summary: The book that Dean is given by Billie says "Dean Winchester Dies at the age of 73, survived by his brother Sam and son Jack." There is no mention of Castiel...





	It Had To Be This Way

**Author's Note:**

> this was made for the Profound Bond discord Birthday! https://discord.gg/encQqnk  
> Prompt and Artwork by [nickelkeep](https://archiveofourown.org/users/nickelkeep/pseuds/nickelkeep)  
> 

Dean stared at the book in his hands and felt sick. He wanted to throw it away as if it were poisonous but this  _ this _ this book was the answer to saving his world from Michael? This vile, black leather bound, pristine book from Billie’s too clean library was the answer. 

 

_ Dean gasps, his hand over his chest. Pain sears through him, yet he doesn’t cry out for help. He clenches his jaw, his hand tightening into a fist, gripping his shirt over his heart.  _

 

“Cas, you can’t,” Dean argued when he found Cas reading the book not so long later. He hadn’t told Cas or Sam about the book for a reason. There was the angel anyway, holding the book that Dean couldn’t stand the sight of. 

“I have to,” was all his angel said before pulling Dean to him. 

 

_ Dean remembers this kind of pain. It’s the kind of pain that is unrelated to monsters. It’s just his body breaking down. He’s having a heart attack. He’s ready to die.  _

_ His vision is blurring at the edges, moreso from the pain than from the fact that his heart is in the process of killing him.  _

 

The hunter tried to pull away from Cas and succeeded only barely. He stood a step away from his angel and stared into the deep blue eyes that were his demise. Cas held out a hand. Silently, Dean took it. Again, Cas pulled his hunter to him and this time he kissed him. 

 

_ “Dad?” Jack’s hands are on his shoulders. Dean had almost forgot what had spurred his heart to give out. “Dad?” Dean can’t talk. He can’t answer his nephlim son as he dies of heartbreak.  _

 

The kiss was gentle and sweet. It was enough to drown Dean’s worry and pain. It was enough to distract Dean. Castiel lifted his hand to Dean’s head, running his hand through his hunter’s soft brown hair lovingly. 

The curse Dean had bestowed upon himself, locking Michael away in his head, flowed from Dean to Cas.

 

_ “I was always going to be the cause of his death,” Dean finally repeated, his knees sagging to the floor. “Of course he made a deal.” Jack holds onto his father as he dials Sam. _

_ When Sam picks up all Jack says is, “It’s Dean. I’m calling 911.” _

 

Cas collapsed in Dean’s arms. The incessant pounding of Michael in Dean’s head was gone. Instead, his angel was limp in his arms. He remembered watching Cas do this with Sam- take on the evil that Sam’s mind was. He had ended up incapacitated in a mental hospital.

“No! Cas, no!” Dean yelled. 

 

_ Dean stares at the moving lights above him as he’s wheeled through the hospital. He feels sicker, somehow, knowing that he was always going to be the cause of his angel’s death. If he had had the chance to make Castiel truly happy, then he would have been claimed by the Empty. He can’t decide which death was worse. _

 

“What happened?” Sam was yelling as Dean sobbed, holding onto Cas. 

“He took Michael,” Dean sobbed. “He took Michael and now I have to kill him.” 

 

_ “He’s coding! Get me the pads!” There is so much noise. Dean can’t hear it anymore. Jack watches through a window with Sam as a 73 year old Dean Winchester flatlines.  _

 

“Dean!” Sam called out to stop his brother but it was too late. Dean had Castiel’s angel blade and drove it through its owner’s temple. Cas’s eyes opened, bright blue light illuminating Dean’s haunted face. Cas went limp again, the blue light dying with him. He pulled the blade away, blood draining from the two wounds. 

 

_ “He said to give you this book,” Jack cries as he hands a black leather bound book to his uncle. Sam holds onto Jack for a moment longer before opening the book. Written on the first page in his brother’s handwriting it says,  _ It had to be this way.

 

“It had to be this way, Sam,” Dean choked. His hands were covered in blood now. His jeans soaked through with it. “I loved him.”

 

_ “It had to be this way,” Sam reads aloud. He looks at his nephew, grief lining every one of his features. “He loved him.” _

 

* * *

 

Side by side two grave markers sat. Side by side two lovers lay. Thirty three years apart in death, separated still by eternal resting grounds. Sam lay the black book on the ground as he grieved his brother and his brother’s angel. Jack by his side, they said nothing. 

The sun was setting and neither had the words. Both graves were empty, of course. The two hunter’s funerals had taken place 33 years apart almost to the day. 

Carved into the angel’s grave, in the handwriting of his love, was only four simple words: I loved you, Castiel. Above it was burned, “Castiel, Angel of the Lord”. 

 

Sam remembered watching his brother from afar. His grief stricken brother sobbing in the rain, his knife to the wooden marker. He was on his knees, his entire body 

soaked through. His face was pale and Sam couldn’t tell if he was crying or if it was just the rain. Dean let out an awful noise, the noise of someone who had lost the single 

most important thing. The noise was something between a groan and scream. He made the terrible noise as he carved, with his teeth gritted, “I loved you, Castiel,” 

repeatedly into the same spot. The markings were deep and sure to never fade just as his love was never to heal. 

 

Dean’s grave read, in the same burned letters, “Dean Winchester. It had to be this way.” 

Jack dropped a single silver ring in between the two graves. The ring that had once belonged to Dean, worn on his right hand every day. The ring gleamed in the dying sun. 

**Author's Note:**

> Orignal artwork made for this fic can be found at this [link](https://nickelkeep.tumblr.com/post/182278731228/it-had-to-be-this-way-for-maggiemaybe160)


End file.
